an exception
by we'll be counting stars
Summary: God dammit, she's lucky he's really into her. [College!AU. Fluff. Eventual Bellarke. T for language and mild suggestive theme.-Now multichap.]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **_this is plotless trash but they're cute. here you go_

* * *

"Like, are you kidding me? It's Tuesday. I have a midterm at eight. Why would you choose tonight, of all nights, to hang a sock on the door?-You know?" Clarke tilts her head backwards to look at him, her face upside down from his perch at his desk chair.

He nodded sympathetically, chuckling at the girl at his feet. "Roommates suck." Bellamy brings his arm up to block the pillow Miller flings at him.

"Says the guy who lets his girlfriend come over at two." At least, that's what Bellamy catches of it; Nathan's incompetent when he's sleep deprived.

The blonde-her face deliciously flushed-snatches the pillow, chucking it at his sleeping form. "We aren't dating!"

Miller simply flips them off and pulls the pillow over his head.

"Forget him. You're always welcome here," Bellamy assures, ruffling her hair, earning a grunt from the girl. "You want help studying?"

She waves a dismissive hand, using her other to fix her curls. "I'm all studied out. What I need is sleep."

Bellamy points up at his lofted bed, brows arched. She raises her own in response, her head shaking once. "I'm not sleeping your bed, not after last time."

"I just changed the sheets!" he retorts, and now it's his turn to blush. It wasn't his fault she came over right after he and his chem partner studied each other's anatomy. (She was good at it, but he had wished it was Clarke instead.)

She still seems uncertain, standing up to peer at the bed. She rises up on her toes and he catches a glimpse of her tummy. "...I guess it's safe," and he knows she's just messing with him at this point, so he lets it slide. Clarke clambers up onto the bed, and he notes with a grin that her flannel pajama bottoms are too long for her.

He balls up his shirt from the day and is situating it on his rug, ready to sleep on the ground, when she says, "You know you can sleep up here too."

Bellamy's pretty sure she's fucking with him again, and he eyes her hesitantly, but she quirks her eyebrows expectantly and he knows now he can't say no.

She makes room for him, and he climbs up, tugging the blanket over them both. It's a tight fit and she's totally hitting him everywhere him as she readjusts, but he won't complain.

They lay silently for awhile, and it's so comfortable he wants to melt into the moment permanently. Her eyes are on him studiously in that way that makes him die a little, and it's nice, watching her watch him, listening to her slow breathing. Then he feels her feet wedging their way between his. Bell's eyes widen and he jerks back.

"What?" she laughs, and he's still looking at the mad woman before him.

"I hate feet, Clarke, why would you ever-?" He's so disturbed by her audacity to touch him with her bare feet. "Where the hell are your socks?!"

"I don't wear socks to bed!" she says, and dammit, she's still laughing. "You're feet are so _warm_." And she dares to put hers back between them!

And again, he kicks his feet back. "Clarke, what the fuck?" He wants to die, but for a different reason now.

"You look like you're going to cry." She curls her head up against his chest, her body shaking with laughter.

Bellamy's face is hot and he wants so badly to force socks onto her feet. "Not only are your feet disgusting, but they're freezing," he scolds, because even though he didn't let her feet linger long, he definitely felt her unnatural arctic toes.

"Yeah, which is why you should let me use your feet." She's looking at him hopefully now, and she's scooting closer to him now.

He glares at her hard because she's a maniac, shoving her feet up on him without even asking and pretending it's normal. "How am I supposed to sleep if your icicle feet are on mine?"

"Shuuthahellup," he hears from the bed across the room.

"See? You're ruining Miller's life too."

Clarke really needs to stop laughing at him. "You're such a baby." She's considerate, though, closing her eyes and tucking her head into the hollow of his neck and keeping her feet away.

Bellamy, though still traumatized, shuts his eyes and tries to sleep away the pain. However, he can feel her shivering against him, which is distracting in all types of ways.

With a sigh and a grimace, he places his feet over hers. In thanks, she snuggles close to him and shoves her hands up his shirt and apparently her hands are cold too. "Warm," she mumbles.

God dammit, she's lucky he's really into her.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **_updated as per request, and because they're too precious._

* * *

They're fucking around in a study room, which is great, as always. Monty's come prepared with hash brownies and Harp's playing DJ. Bellamy's sitting across from Clarke, who, unlike the rest of the gang, is actually working diligently. To remind her they're having fun, he folds up a paper football and flicks it at her.

The glare she gives him both intimidates and humors him. "C'mon, Princess, haven't you studied enough already?"

"No." She looks back at her notes, and she's surrounded by highlighters, what a _nerd_, and Bellamy just wants to piss her off at this point. That's always fun.

He reaches over and slides away her blue marker, which he knows is for important terms. She notices instantly, her eyes alight with fury, and he knows he's up for a fun brawl.

Clarke holds her hand out, palm up, like that'll get him to budge. How cute.

"Looking for something?" he asks innocently, as though the pen wasn't hidden beneath his thigh. His hand is inching across the table, in pursuit of the highlighter's orange twin.

Clarke slaps her hand over the pen but isn't fast enough to keep him from snatching up the yellow one.

(Harper, noticing the oncoming fight, puts on some rock song that ups the dramatics. Bless her.)

The princess's patience starts wearing thin. "Bellamy Blake, if you do not give that back to me right now, I'll-"

"You'll what?" he urges her, and, fuck, he's loving every minute of this.

"I'll never make you lunch ever again," and, well, he does love her lunch.

But Bellamy is not a quitter. "You could do worse."

They get into an intense glare-off, which Monty so kindly commentates.

"Clarke's fiery fury is enough to burn down a city, yet Bellamy's slightly lifted brow and douchebag smirk is always a crowd favorite. It's a tough call, folks..."

And then Clarke's up, circling the table, and promptly leaning over him. "Give it to me." Her voice is so demanding.

"Give what to you?" Oh, he was in trouble. He stands up too, markers clutched behind his back.

She's getting frustrated, _so_ frustrated, her brows knit together in that way of hers. She's thinking, he knows, she's coming up with a plan of attack.

She lunges for his back, and he turns around casually. She tries again but to no avail, and she grunts. "Bellamy!"

This time she reaches around him and he raises the highlighters over his head because he's not above using his height advantage. "C'mon, Princess, you gotta do better than that."

"Banter! Teasing! The crowd erupts with cheers!" Monty's holding Clarke's green highlighter as a microphone. (Her sharp glare does not deter him.)

She stands in front of him stubbornly, arms crossed. "Bell..."

"Blake remains in place! What will Griffin's next move be?" Harper pitches in, clutching a pink highlighter, her music switching to intense movie score.

"Oh, oh, what's this?-And she's jumping!" Monty narrates as, yes, Clarke struggles to reach the highlighters.

"I hate you guys!" Clarke growls.

Bellamy waves them above her head tauntingly, his laughter booming. He's a dick, maybe, but he's a fun one. "God, you're short. _Grow_ already."

Her hands are waving crazily above her head and their game of keep away intensifies as Monty throws the orange marker at Bell.

"You're so short, can you even hear me down there?" He maneuvers each of the markers in between his fingers, letting them stand proudly above his head.

"And Blake unleashes his Wolverine claws!" Harper howls as Clarke groans.

He's about to take another jab at her stature when she gets a devious glint in her eyes. "No. Clarke, don't you _dare_-"

It's too late. She's tickling his sides, his stomach, his arm pits, and he's fighting to keep the markers from her as he laughs hysterically. "Give up, Blake!" And she's laughing too.

He has to give up after a bit because a.) he doesn't want her to be too pissed, and b.) he's too ticklish to function. The others are doubled over with laughter as she takes back her remaining highlighters, and Clarke's smug about winning, which is enough to distract her, he thinks, as he scoots his chair closer to the table.

(Monty's going wild now, because, yeah, he knows exactly what Bellamy's hiding.)

"Wasn't that fun?" he says, winking at her.

Clarke flings the highlighter at his face, and he falls for her a little more.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** _because i can't just not have a valentine's day chapter_

* * *

It's the day after Valentine's Day, and Bellamy and Octavia are pushing a shopping cart through a wasteland that was once filled with bags of chocolates and conversation hearts. Now, the shelves are near-bare, proof that, like the Blake siblings, people like half off sales on candy.

"I can't believe you spent Valentine's Day with a bunch of kids," Octavia muses, because god forbid she let it drop.

"Tease me all you want, I _like_ volunteering at the rec center." And it's true—Bellamy might not have liked chaperoning a Valentine's Dance and watching kids chasing each other around a dim gymnasium, but he likes spending his weekends working with them. His "Little Brother," Daniel, had been raving about his plans for the dance for the past couple weeks, telling Bellamy all about his crush and insisting he be there in case he needed help. He couldn't just say no.

Octavia snorts at him as she tosses a bag of gummy hearts into the cart. "While you were hanging out with twelve year olds, Lincoln made dinner for me. It was so great, Bell, and after-"

"O..." he warns. He loves his sister more than anything, he really does, and he's glad she's happy and in love, but he has no interest in the details of her relationship.

"Chill. I was gonna say he asked about you." She holds up a heart shaped box and pointed at it in silent question.

Bellamy nods in approval and raises his eyebrows, baffled that Lincoln would even mention him. "What would he want to know about me?"

"Well, you know. The entire time he and I have been dating, you haven't dated anyone." She sets the box on top of their growing pile of goodies.

He's quiet a beat, reading the back of a candy box and considering her words. He could swear he's dated someone in the past year. He's had several meaningless flings, sure, but to his surprise, he can't recall anything more serious. With a sigh, he says, "Yeah, and?"

"And he wanted to know if you're lonely."

"Fuck him, I'm not lonely."

"You have, like, four friends."

Five, he wants to correct. "That doesn't mean I'm lonely, O. I can be single and content."

She stares at him like she's right and he's a loner. The brat.

"I'm not lonely," he asserts, pushing the cart along.

Octavia shakes her head, strolling alongside him. "If you say so…" she sing-songs, and god, she's annoying.

"Shut up," he grumbles, snatching a box of heart pretzels off a shelf.

"What about Clarke?" she asks, and when he glares, she gives that goddamn look again. "Don't act like you don't like her."

"I don't," he lies, because he hates when she's right. "It's none of your business."

She starts snickering, what the hell, and she's poking at his side. "Bellamy's in loooooove."

He shrugs her off stubbornly and his cheeks are hot. "Shut up," he repeats, hitting her with a teddy bear holding a heart.

Octavia giggles some more, clutching the bear to her chest as they leave the Valentine's section. "You should give this to Clarke, she'd love it." She makes the bear dance.

"I don't like her!" And, god, why are they doing this in the middle of the grocery store?

She's still got that shit-eating grin on her face. "Whatever you say, Bell.." She sets the bear in the cart. "Whatever you say."

* * *

Clarke's lounging on Nate's bed and fiddling with a Rubik's Cube and being totally not helpful. "I'm telling you, we'll be living on the moon within the next hundred years. It's gonna be awesome."

He huffs noncommittally, scrolling through movie titles online. "You know what would be awesome? If you picked a movie already."

"But am I wrong?" she says instead, because she's annoying.

With a heavy sigh, he pushes his laptop aside and spins in his desk chair, facing her. "Living on the moon would be impractical."

"Impractical, sure, but impossible? No." She motions for him to hand over the computer and he does. "Somebody's going to come up with a way to colonize the moon, and I'm _so_ ready."

"Clarke, no country can claim the moon. It's a global asset." He kicks off from his desk and rolls over to her.

She doesn't answer immediately, busy thinking and typing away. "But, okay, would you go if you had the chance?"

"Why would I? Earth's great. Has plumbing."

She gives him an unamused look and passes the computer back. "Loser. I'd go."

Bellamy notices with a laugh that she's selected a movie about inhabiting the moon. What a nerd. "Of course you would."

They both fall silent as the movie starts up and, yeah, the movie's total shit, but that's okay with them. He's more than content with spending his afternoon watching a crappy movie with Clarke.

"Who's that for?" she asks after awhile, and he has to look up to see what she's referring to. Her eyes are on the teddy bear holding a heart, perched atop his mini fridge._ Fucking Octavia._

"It's just a thing O bought today," he tries to brush it off.

Clarke grins and gets up, grabs the bear, and returns. "It's so cute."

He tells Clarke she can have it and silently curses O for always being right.


End file.
